Blackened Shrimp Nachos

Last weekend my Aunts Sue and Patti invited us over for dinner and some delicious gluten-free, crust-free cheesecake for my birthday. While we were there hanging out in the kitchen chatting with my Aunt Bryan and I started flipping through the Kraft Foods magazine “Food&Family” and Bryan kept picking out recipes he wanted me to make. We do this often. I’ll get a new magazine or cookbook and I’ll flip through it then give it to him to pick out what he wants to try first. So in this one, he picked out a few but the one he wanted first (aka, the next day!!) was the Cheddar-Shrimp Nachos.

They looked delicious in the picture, but I changed a few things around (go figure) to make them suitable for the both of us to enjoy but also I wasn’t a fan of some of the ingredients and wanted more of the others so I just played around with it and came up with the following interpretation of the dish.

This recipe is very easy to make, especially if you buy either the shelled, and cleaned raw shrimp or even more simple when you buy the pre-cooked (also shelled and cleaned) shrimp. I made sure to remove the tails also because I didn’t want to have to deal with while eating nachos.

I also made my own blackened seasoning to suit our allergies. So this is both gluten-free and onion free. I know this isn’t a traditional blackened seasoning but it worked extremely well for this dish. The recipe below makes more than you will need but I’ll be using this on chicken and fish in the near future.

HEAT large skillet on high heat until it is very hot and starts to smoke. Add 1 Tbsp. dressing, red peppers and seasoning; cook and stir 1 to 2 min. or until the pepper has a “roasted” look to it. Add the shrimp is heated through and evenly coated with dressing mixture. Stir in remaining dressing.

Heat oven to 375 degrees and arrange tortilla chips on a baking sheet. Layer the shrimp and pepper mixture and cheese. Add a second layer of shrimp and add remaining shrimp and cheese. Top with jalapenos.

Bake for 10 minutes or until the cheese has melted. Remove from oven and top with cilantro and chopped mixed greens.

Serve with fresh tomato salsa and a little bit of guacamole – enjoy!

I think I need to add a subscription to this magazine on my wish list.